Filippo Juvarra

However, before Filippo Juvarra created the works most closely associated with his name, he spent many years working as a set designer in Rome, designing, amongst other things, the sets for operas staged at Maria Kazimiera Sobieska’s private theatre in her Roman residence, the Palazzo Zuccari.

Filippo Juvarra was born in Messina into a family with a tradition of art and craftsmanship, and it was there that he spent the early years of his life, working mainly as a goldsmith. He arrived in Rome in 1704, joining the growing number of Sicilian artists flocking to the Eternal City thanks to the efforts of, amongst others, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. Upon his arrival in Rome, he continued his studies in the workshop of Carlo Fontana, an artist who was then held in the highest regard and esteem there.

Under his guidance, he studied both the architecture of Rome’s ancient monuments, the works of the Renaissance masters, and the works of the latest generation of artists active in the city. During this period, however, he suffered terrible poverty, which would probably have brutally curtailed his enthusiasm for his studies had his person and talent not been brought to the attention of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni.

It was for Ottoboni that Juvarra produced his first theatrical works. First, the cardinal commissioned the artist to renovate and adapt the theatre for opera performances at his residence in the Palazzo della Cancelleria; he then commissioned him to design the stage sets for the following works: ‘Costantino Pio’ (1710), ‘Teodosio il Giovane’ (1711) and ‘Il Ciro’ (1712). It is highly likely that as early as 1710, Maria Kazimiera, on the cardinal’s advice, entered into a contract with the artist concerning the set designs for the operas planned for the 1711 carnival – *Tolomeo et Alessandro* and *L’Orlando*. These productions met with widespread acclaim from the audience at the Palazzo Zuccari, which most likely prompted the queen and Alexander to continue utilising Juvarra’s talent for subsequent in-house productions, namely ‘Tetide in Sciro’ and the two *Iphigenia* operas – *Iphigenia in Aulide* and *Iphigenia in Tauri*.

In 1713, Juvarra left Rome for Turin, where Victor Amadeus II, Prince of Savoy, entrusted him with completing the reconstruction of the capital of Piedmont. It may be assumed that the Sobieski family made use of elements from his earlier stage designs as late as 1714 for the production of ‘Amor d’un’Ombra e gelosia d’un’Aura’. Juvarra himself remained in Turin for the next dozen or so years, until 1734. After that, he set off for Spain, where he died unexpectedly in 1736. Interestingly, his Roman connections and experiences came full circle, as one of his acquaintances there was undoubtedly Domenico Scarlatti, the former Kapellmeister to the Queen Dowager, who had been living in Madrid since 1729.

Audiences in the opera theatres of eighteenth-century Europe were captivated not so much by the music itself as by the visual spectacle of the performances, a tradition rooted in the lavish court festivities and operas of the early seventeenth century. An example of such a reception can be found in the opinion expressed by one of Rome’s chroniclers, Francesco Valesio, who, after seeing the performance of *Costantino pio* with sets by Juvarra, staged on the initiative of Cardinal Ottoboni, noted:

‘Last evening, the drama entitled *Costantino pio* was performed in public for the first time; its production was organised in his theatre at the Cancelleria Palace by Cardinal Ottoboni, who wrote it and commissioned Polleroli [sic!] to set it to music, who had travelled from Venice for this purpose, and the production was a resounding success, not only because of the excellence of the music and the performers, but also because of the beauty of the scenes with their magnificent stage machinery, as can be seen in the printed drama”.

The small stage at the Queen’s theatre could have posed considerable problems for the artist. Nor did the Sobieski family have at their disposal the theatrical machinery used at the Cancelleria. However, as contemporary accounts attest, Juvarra coped admirably with these difficulties as well. In a sense, he was aided by the mood of the works by the librettist Maria Kazimiera Sobieska and Carlo Sigismondo Capece, characterised – according to theatre scholar Wanda Roszkowska – by ‘Arcadia’ as an aesthetic category. Visually, this style was characterised by the dominance of open spaces and outdoor settings: the seashore, tree-lined avenues, the forest, a village view, and a campsite. In the majority of the more than thirty surviving sketches by the set designer that can be linked to the operas presented by the Sobieski family, it is precisely these locations that predominate.

An exception is formed by the two *Iphigenias*, which, drawing most fully on ancient tradition, required specific architectural elements such as a temple, a sacrificial altar or a harbour with ships. Roszkowska, however, noted a very interesting difference between Juvarra’s set designs created for the Sobieski family and those designed for Ottoboni – namely, she observed in the former a combination of pastoral elements with exotic, and even Sarmatian, features. For example, the tents in *Iphigenia in Aulis* are inspired by the tents of Turkish viziers, whilst the thatched shepherds’ huts in *L’Orlando* are straight out of distant Rus. Wanda Roszkowska interpreted these Sarmatian elements in Juvarra’s set design as a mythologisation of beloved places, fuelled by the Sobieskis’ exile.

‘Hence, no doubt, those fairy-tale huts with roofs glistening with the golden sheen of straw. It is an allusion to the homeland – lost, imagined,’ she wrote.

From the perspective of later technical innovations, theatre scholars credit Filip Juvarra with refining the style of viewing the stage from the corner, as until then the central stage had dominated productions. In turn, *Il Ciro*, staged at Cardinal Ottoboni’s residence, heralds the cult of nature and sentimentality of the second half of the century, thanks to the combination of Arcadian elements with romantic ruins or, in other words, the integration of architecture into the landscape. The productions created for the Sobieski family combine picturesque beauty (further enhanced by the fact that many of the decorations were simply painted) with lyricism, a masterful use of chiaroscuro, and the creation, through the set design, of an autonomous realm subordinate to musical and literary content.

Nor did the artist overlook the Sarmatian symbolism so important to the Sobieski family, which shows how much he valued their patronage. The great understanding that Juvarra demonstrated in his work on preparing the opera may also have stemmed from the fact that he harboured a passionate love for music. It was probably thanks to his inspiration and efforts that Capece-Scarlatti’s *Ifigenia in Tauri* was revived on the theatre stage in Turin (1719), even though he himself was already devoting himself with great passion to his architectural pursuits at that time.

The text is taken from PASAŻ WIEDZY , where you can find more reliable articles on Old Polish history and culture
Reproduced courtesy of the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów